


as one now

by the_authors_exploits



Series: AJ's AUs [9]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Chronic Pain, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason has chronic pain, Protectiveness, Slash if you squint, jason has a really good if slightly creepy friend, protective symbiote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-23 18:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14939975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: Jason needed help when the warehouse exploded, when his body was broken, and Venn needed a host.





	as one now

**Author's Note:**

> I know very little about the actual experience of chronic pain; I tried to showcase it the best I could through Jason's persistent pain and injuries; I hope I did alright. Please let me know if I need to change anything.

Pain. Piercing, consistent, pinching in his left hip; it’s always like this. Jason groans, twisting in his sheets to find any relief, and curls into a ball; he clutches the sheets and bites out a name.

“Venn.”

A rumble; not in the air, but in his mind. A deep voice answers, reverberating the slightest bit.

_ “I can help.” _

“Please,” Jason chokes and immediately the softest red begins to ooze down from the back of his neck; across his shoulder, down his ribs, collecting at his damaged hip. It fills in the missing bone, cocoons the shrapnel left there, touches delicately to the nerves aflame, shifts the metal plates holding Jason together.

It flows through his veins to other areas; to his shoulder blade where scar tissue causes muscle spasms, to his leg that is too weak to carry his weight anymore, to his mind that is tortured every night. The thing weaves itself into his being, and slowly Jason’s body melts into the mattress. He breathes deeply, expanding his ribcage without any flare of pain, and his eyes flutter shut.

_ “Will you sleep more?” _

“Just...just a bit,” he slurs, and Venn nigh purrs. Jason drifts to sleep with great ease, Venn an ever watchful presence.

When he wakes again, the pain is a soft ache; he eases to sit upright at the edge of his bed, then stumbles to his feet and goes for the shower. Venn isn’t a weight in Jason’s bones which is a relief; the alien is no burden to carry, and in fact he’s a gift. Jason takes his time in the shower, careful with his footing on the slippery bottom, and lathers his hair twice before a quick conditioning and exiting finally.

He dries off slow; wisely averting his gaze at times, he doesn’t spend much time on the thick scars across his body. A pair of loose jeans and a gray shirt are what he chooses to wear for the day, and at 11:12 he’s finally ready for breakfast.

_ “You need potassium.” _

Jason ignores the bananas and goes for his weekly case of medication: daily vitamins, extra supplements, prescribed pain meds, homeopathic remedies included. It takes him long minutes to ingest them all, and all the while Venn continues to list off various items on its checklist of helpfulness.

_ “Perhaps we’ll have carrot soup tonight; we will need chicken broth, a bag of carrots, are your cupboards empty of parsley? Do not forget to order the Traumeel and Bengay; also, you are in need of Advil again.” _

“Venn, you realize I know all this already, right?”

There is silence, a hissing buzz as Venn retreats the slightest bit; a laugh bursts forth and Jason sets his cup of water down next to the medication.

“Oh my god, you’re pouting!”

_ “I do not pout.” _

“You’re pouting, Venn.” The hiss grows and Jason chuckles again; he leaves a few pills on the counter, too tired from swallowing all the others, and opens a cupboard. “What should we have for breakfast?”

_ “You should have an omelet, a slice of toast, and at least one banana for potassium.” _

“You and my potassium levels.”

Venn purrs; amusement or the alien’s form of contentedness is shown with a purr, sometimes the sound flitting upwards and down quick in a mimic of a laugh. That’s the purr now, lilting up and down smoothly, and Jason pulls a pan out to start warming it up.

A part of the alien slithers out from his back and taps at the radio set up nearby; Jason’s a little old school, but so is Gotham. The radio crackles to life, a brief weather segment before old rock starts playing. Jason cooks his omelet, toasts the bread, and Venn growls out  _ banana _ before he sits down.

“Fine, fine! Geez…” Jason knows better than to argue with the alien when it uses that tone; the thing can wrap itself around Jason’s body, intertwine within his muscles, and force him to act. It happens very little, mostly only in emergency situations where Jason needs an added advantage, but he knows Venn would have no qualms about forcing potassium into him. He snags a banana.

The meal is filling and tasty; Jason squints against the sun. He probably slept in too much, considering the time of day, and he scrapes the last bite into his mouth. He’ll clean the kitchen when he comes back, if he has the energy, and deposits the plate in the sink.

_ “I could clean while you rest.” _

Venn has done that before; while Jason slept, it’d assumed control and tidied the loft. Their consciousnesses were seperate things, able to operate independently of each other; all Venn needed was Jason’s form to mold against and operate. It was a nice gesture, to clean and tidy, but Jason always felt strange after one of Venn’s adventures.

“There’s not that much of a mess, it’ll be fine.”

Venn reminds him to take a jacket before he leaves and he stiffly slips into his sneakers, a dark green hoodie over his grey shirt; he stands and wobbles for only a split second before one of Venn’s appendages snap outwards to steady him.

_ “Should you wear your brace?” _

It’s clunky and sometimes harder to walk in than without; too much energy to lift the limb, adding extra strain on Jason’s already scarred muscles.

“Can you do it?”

Venn hums an affirmative and the alien--weightless--fits against Jason’s skin in a firm hold, bending appropriately into a brace. It could just as easily blend into Jason’s muscles and bones, but there is still hope that his leg might recover with a bit of help. So Venn is the brace and Jason doesn’t have to worry so much about his leg giving out.

The cargo elevator is old and rusted, but works well enough to get Jason to the ground floor. The bottom floor is an open space, much like his loft, fairly empty besides a few boxes and his car; a Fiat 500, sporty enough for Jason’s liking but comfortable enough for his body. Venn had given him a good talking to, as he ranted about the Fiat’s crash reliability and how more injuries would hamper his already fragile recovery. Jason had went straight to the bathroom mirror and given the middle finger; Venn had purred, clearly humored, for the rest of the day.

Gotham traffic can be terribly frustrating, but Jason has learned patience since...the incident. He fiddles with the radio at a lengthy red light, taps his fingers against the steering wheel, and he can feel Venn eyeing everyone around them. From the man driving the minivan, his kids in the backseat laughing, to the elderly lady at the crosswalk; Jason sighs and scrubs his eyes.

“You don’t have to be twice as paranoid as me.” He had also summed up the people around them, but Venn’s paranoia is a needling at Jason’s mind, making his skin crawl and his hair stand on end; they feed each other, and sometimes Jason wonders if they should separate, find Venn another host.

But then Jason would have no easy way to escape his pain, when the meds don’t work or the day is just bad; and, in a way, he feels he owes Venn.

He feels Venn retract a bit, hide away his consciousness to ease Jason.  _ “Apologies.” _

The light turns green and they move on; Jason shops at a family owned grocery store near the border between high brow Gotham and the East End. The daughter used to live in his apartment building when he was younger, but when she was murdered her parents moved to a safer area with her children; he’s stayed loyal to them, happy to have fresh fruits and vegetables, along with their organic selection.

He finds a parking spot and eases out of the car; Venn stays properly wrapped about his leg, hidden under his pants leg, strong enough to support his weight but thin enough to be unnoticeable. Jason pulls one of the small shopping carts from the corral and leans his weight on it; he saunters in through the sliding doors and Rita gives him a wrinkled smile.

“Welcome to Wholesome Goods!” She’s currently bagging a loaf of bread for a customer, but it’s tradition so Jason moves close and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Doing well today? A bit late for you.”

“I may have slept in today.” He steps further into the store; there are some shelves of various items to the left, along with a couple freezers. To the right is the fruit and produce section; a simple layout and a simple store.

He grabs a bag from the dispenser and weighs out five nectarines; in another bag he takes three tomatoes, then adds to his cart a small bag of apples. Venn tugs him, gently, towards the bananas and Jason takes an entire bunch to appease the alien; from there he piles some easy but healthy frozen dinners for rough days when he can barely function, a box of cheerios, half a gallon of milk, some various other food stuffs.

Once he’s done, he heads for the register; Rita greets him with another smile and Fernando emerges from the back room, wiping his hands on a towel. He also offers Jason a smile; they are a warm family, too sweet and kind to be stuck on the bad end of Gotham. Jason takes the box of cereal to put it on the counter but Fernando waves him away.

“I help, son; you just rest.”

“No, Fernando, I’ve got this; it’s fine, really!”

“Pahh!” the old man scoffs, and Jason knows better than to argue with him when he pulls that face; he’s got the determination of his Italian ancestors, so Jason puts his hands up and Venn purrs its little laugh.

“How’s Minnie and Tito?”

Rita speaks with him as she scans his items, totals what he owes; Jason pays with cash and Fernando loads the bags--brown with small handles at the top--back in the cart.

“Don’t worry about return cart; take care of yourself, young man.”

Jason smiles and salutes, and Rita asks him how he’s been doing; his answers are honest but soft. He speaks briefly about the pain from this morning and Rita frowns sympathetically. But then he mentions his plans for a road trip and her face brightens; she asks him where, if he’ll bring anyone, and Venn purrs a laugh again when he answers no.

_ “I am no one?” _

Jason doesn’t answer, instead focusing on Rita and Fernando’s words; they tell him to be safe, careful, and to remember his medications when he does leave for the trip. They ask when he’ll be leaving, when he’ll be back, if he wants to take the kids off their hands on Saturday.

“They want to go to the pool, but we have to watch the store; plus some sun would do you good, Jason.” She says his name with a hard ‘Jay’ and the softest ending ‘son’. 

He moves out of the way of a shopper, paying no mind to the young guy who makes his way to the back aisle to study a soup can. “Sure, I don’t mind; sounds good!”

He won’t take them to the Slum’s pool; the water is hardly ever cleaned, so low it droops from the shallow end to the deep end, and the cracks are dangerous in the concrete. There’s a pool further in the city, and he can afford the entry fee; Rita thanks him and they would talk more but Jason’s hip is flaring once again so Venn ushers him out.

“See you on Saturday,” Jason calls over his shoulder.

_ “We should have picked up sunscreen too.” _

“They don’t carry pharmacy items; we’ll stop by the drug store on the way home.”

Venn helps lift the bags in the car; it thrusts its limbs out and Jason is thankful to have finally gotten used to seeing spiked tentacles sprout from his body. Once the bags are secured, Jason goes to close the trunk but Venn is faster.

“Thanks, Venn.” Hand pressed to his hip, Jason shuffles stiffly for the driver’s seat, wincing against the pain and exhaustion.

_ “Jason.” _ Venn never harms; it’s gentle and kind, protective, but Jason knows the thing is powerful. So the sharpness in its voice, the sudden way it tenses, causes alarm.  _ “Inside.” _

Jason looks; the young man, maybe 18 or so, stands at the counter. A gun drawn, his nervous energy is threatening to Rita, whose eyes are watering something fierce, hands raised and shaking.

“Venn,” Jason orders. “Do something.”

The alien wraps about him, a blue-black coloring outlined in a soft red coming to criss cross his chest in an intricate design of a bat; Venn fills in for Jason’s weakness, and together they race forward into the frey.


End file.
